Tom's drive to push on

Tom Beere was handed an unfamiliar centre-back role last night, but the 19-year-old says he must work hard on his technique at the other end to make a first-team breakthrough.

Tom received praise from Under-21s coach Alan Reeves for filling a defensive position at Canvey Island, but the attacker told Dons Player that he’s still ruing his missed opportunities for the first-team in friendlies against Chelsea and Sutton United.

Speaking to Rob Cornell, Tom said: “It was a good experience playing against Branislav Ivanovic, John Terry and Ruben Loftus-Cheek, who has been scoring goals for the Under-21s. It was just a shame I could not score because I could have put us 3-0 up. I snatched at the chance and it was a lack of technique. Maybe with a bit more work on my heading at the training ground I would also have scored against Sutton, but I cannot afford to dwell on it. I just have to go back to the training ground and work on my technique.

“It will be good playing in competitive games for the Under-21s next season, but the whole point of it is that Alan Reeves will bring more players through for Neal Ardley’s first-team.”

Tom is looking forward to working on a regular basis with Alan Reeves, who has taken on the Under-21 coaching role at Wimbledon after the departure of Shaun North.

“Judging on the sessions I’ve had with Alan so far he is similar to Shaun,” added Tom. “They both want players to keep the ball and move it on quickly and they both just don’t want to lose. Alan has lots of experience in the game and he’s a very good coach. We’ve only had a few sessions with Alan, but you can tell that he knows what he’s talking about. He’s helping us with our positioning and everything else so that we will not be lacking if we go up to the first-team.”

Speaking after last night’s 2-1 defeat at Canvey Island, Alan Reeves saluted Tom’s attitude for playing out of position at short notice.

“I thought Tom was our best player,” said Alan. “We had a lot of midfielders in our squad so I spoke to Tom on Monday and asked if he could help us out. He said he had played centre-back in his youth days and it was not a problem. Tom won all of his headers and tackles and it’s just another string to his bow.”